Red is a Christmas Color
by legendarytobes
Summary: Chloe Sullivan/Clark Kent/Lex Luthor - Set in the Family 'Verse, basically follows from "Family Traditions," "Christmas Overloaded," and "Holiday Giving." Clark's hopped up on red K thanks to Chloe's plan so how far is he willing to go with Lex and Chloe back at the mansion on Christmas Eve, and will he be able to live with himself in the morning.


"Clark!" Chloe shouted as he set her down on Lex's bed, the huge king that he'd never understood until now.

Lex hadn't, as far as Clark knew, had anyone over to the mansion or had any lovers in years. The last wife he'd tried had come from straight from the Helen Bryce and Lana Lang school and tried to poison him. That was a dumb move. Lex had been poisoned once to insane levels by Lionel after the indictment, and anyone who could put three clues together from Chloe's old files, his hospital records, and Van MacNulty's rampage would know it took a Hell of a lot to kill Lex.

So, Clark knew for a fact that Lex had been celibate for about five years.

Too many burns even without his other life's memories haunting him.

So he never understood the point of this bed. Conner'd mentioned it, saying he wanted Lex to remodel his wing (spoiled kid) and get a bed just like it. That it was easily fifteen feet long and took up the bulk of an already massive room.

Now Clark knew.

Clark knew a lot of things. Like that Chloe and Lex had been planning this for at least a month, all those quiet whispers at Thanksgiving, that they were kinkier than he'd have given them credit for. No, not Lex, even after his own share of recent Black Widows and models-come-stalkers, Lex had his own kinks, and Clark had always known that. With all that red K flowing through him, going to places south awfully fast, he wasn't trying to deny anything.

Yes, of course there was a reason Conner was his and not Kara's.

There always had been something there, something he'd fought since he'd breathed life back into Lex on the river bank. He'd never acted on it because at first he hadn't understood what it was, and then once he had, he was still at home with his parents, trying to make up for the summer he'd torn up Metropolis and hoping his parents never asked too closely after what he'd done.

God he'd had so many one-night stands that summer.

Technically never all the way, but there were things you could do with hands and tongue with toys that his parents would have despised him for. He didn't need to give him the extra ammunition, not with a dead child and Dad's heart condition also on his head.

So, yes, there'd been this space between coming home and when Lionel had fried Lex's mind when Clark had desperately wanted more, been old enough to reach for it, but then everything kept falling and failing so hard and everything ended so badly between them and years before Oliver blew Lex 1.0 apart.

It was Chloe that surprised him.

Even as she resisted his efforts to pull off her sweater. More's the pity. Clark sped everything off of himself instead except his boxers. He could keep a bit of mystery, play it out for at least Lex for a bit longer when the other man finally drove up. Bitch of superspeed was he spent most of his life waiting for normal people to catch up. Well, not normal. Not with what Chloe and Lex became after the shower, their own abilities. But they weren't fast like he was.

Of course, Clark thought as he draped himself over his wife, biting and lapping at her neck, a bit of a growl rumbling deep in his throat, some things were better slow.

"Clark," she said, humoring him just a bit by slipping her sweater off (Finally Chloe) and revealing the thin red shirt underneath. "You have to wait. I...Lex isn't here yet."

Clark nodded and ground up against her. "But you are. I have plenty of energy, don't be afraid of that."

She started to struggle up and he helped, using the moment to shove his hands under her shirt and feel the swell of her belly. Theirs. Their daughter. They'd made her and this was the first time Clark could enjoy this, the meat returning to Chloe's bones after she spent so much time overworking at The DP and Watchtower. The first time he could enjoy the growth of her breasts, the glow in her cheeks, that he could take fatherly pride in the life she was carrying and not feel guilt lacing it too.

"I love you," he said and that startled him, not because it wasn't true but as horny as he was, as fiercely as the Red K was flowing through his body, he shouldn't be thinking that deeply.

But it was no less true.

Chloe's eyes watered just a bit, as if after almost three years, she was surprised to hear it. First Oliver had left her for Dinah and she'd moved in with him because, honestly, where else would she go and he was back to single anyway? Then everything changed with Jonathan and with his changes came their own, the final blast of their walls.

Clark couldn't even understand after so long and so many missed connections and so much pain how good life couold feel again. "I do. Right now I'd like to fuck you rotten, but you're amazing." He leaned down and put his head under the hem of her shirt, trailing a line of kisses down her belly. "Both of you."

"Perhaps things have started without me. Am I not needed, Sullivan?" Lex said, coughing politely even as he shed his jacket and shoes.

Chloe pushed at Clark's head and he let her, rolling back onto his back and licking his lips as Lex crossed towards them. Somehow it was completely unfair how ready he was for everything and Chloe still had her skirt and shirt on and Lex was there with slacks and a button down. They were punshing him, Clark knew it.

He smirked back at Lex and stood, enjoying towering over the other man, and not in the shameful way he had in the past, where it had been about threats, sometimes attempted strangulation. This was a different kind of power. This was being able to envelope him in his arms as Clark was now, to kiss a trail across the enticing baldness of Lex's scalp the way he had with Chloe's stomach.

Mine too.

Lex laughed and kissed him on the lips before humoring him and slipping off at least his lilac (what other color) Oxford. Heat ripped through Clark at the sight of such white, perfect skin and he blinked his eyes furiously as if he were fifteen and a complete spaz again. The other man slipped into bed beside Chloe and both leaned against the ostentatious (again what else) ebony head board.

"There are a few ground rules."

Clark stayed standing but began to pace. "I don't know if I should let you list those."

Lex gestured toward him with a flourish of long fingers. Clark wanted to see everything Lex could do with those tonight. "These are the rules and this is the deal or both Chloe and I go back to the farm."

"That wouldn't be fun now would it?"

Lex laughed. "No, but we play by rules. Chloe dosed you. I didn't know she was going to, but you're high as a damn kite, and we're not going but so far. She did this to get you to admit things."

Clark gestured toward his crotch. "I can admit a lot of things. I have so many ideas for both of you. Not everything, Chlo's delicate right now and-"

Chloe rolled her eyes. "Like I'd ever be that delicate. No, I wanted you to...just loosen up but we're not going anywhere near that far tonight Clark because when you get this out of your system you'll probably kill us in the morning."

"Also, it would be wrong. I think we've all had our minds played with enough at different times to resent this. I know I have."

Chloe nodded. "Brainiac played with me more than enough. Clark, we want you to hear things but not be so angry. The stuff that happened before...it's been a long damn time. We didn't...I didn't quite expect you'd be ready to go in about thirty seconds."

Clark stopped pacing and sped into bed between them. It was the first time Chloe had yipped at his speed in ages. She must be more on edge than her calm demeanor would lead you to believe. Lex for his part, scooted to the left of the massive expanse of the bed with his hands held up. "We can talk."

Clark leaned over and crushed Lex's mouth with a kiss, his tongue running over the other man's. When he bothered to pull back, Lex was gasping. "I don't want to talk."

Lex shook his head and trailed a hand over Clark's chest and he shivered with that, eyes burning so hot he might burn the damn mansion down. "You'll thank us later. Just, Clark, what do you want with us. So stupid, you already have both of us, probably did the moment both of us laid eyes on you."

Chloe nodded and leaned her chin up to rest on his shoulder. Gesturing toward her stomach she added, "Now you completely have us with Conner and Jonathan and Lily...we'd never go anywhere."

He laughed and kissed her lips too. "Not that you would have before. What I want is a nice hard f-"

"No, not at all. Not tonight," Chloe said. "Later, when it's only you saying that, when there's no Red K. Right now, we just want you to know," she added, taking Lex's hand in hers across the mattress. "We're family, right?"

He laughed. "Not quite the definition Jonathan Kent original recipe had."

Lex frowned but Chloe shook her head, and Clark noted that not many people forced Lex to hold his tongue ever. "I know...you, this part of you, had issues with your dad."

"I don't," Clark said. "He kicked me out when I was sixteen, and when I took the ring back off I played nice, hid things. I loved him but he wouldn't have...it wasn't just the Kryptonian things. He couldn't have loved all of me. So mostly, yeah, he was a good guy, but this wouldn't...Jonathan would have hated it."

Lex kissed his cheek and chuckled. "Lionel's biggest complaint would be that Chloe's not a redhead. He was particular but, if you bear with, even as young as you both were probably wanted both of you for himself." Lex sighed and squeezed Chloe's hand. "Well, especially Chloe. I never was sure if he was as flexibleas I was."

Clark growled. Stupid controlling fathers were the last thing he wanted to talk about, not when he was hard as granite and the people he wanted most were draped around him. "Who cares. They're gone."

"Then what do you want?" Chloe asked, her voice quiet and calm.

"Both of you, all of this, and we'll make the rules we want."

"Tomorrow," Lex said, yawning and laying down to sleep and Chloe did the same on the other side, tucking into Clark, spooning next to him and letting her arms cover their daughter. "If you feel this way tonight, then see if you still honestly feel that way tomorrow."

Frustrated, Clark ground against Lex's hip. "I will. Tomorrow, a year, a century. Why wait after too fucking long?"

"You feel that way tomorrow," Chloe said. "And we'll do whatever you want."

Clark woke up and everything felt blurry. This was a feeling he knew well, that lack of memory of the past night's events, something he stopped worrying about after three or four weeks in Metropolis. There was a different man or woman or more to wake up to then, people coming down from highs and still too blissed out to question how he could lift so much with ease or move a finger or tongue so fast. People too blitzed to question the ugly brand Jor-El had cursed him with.

But this wasn't that time or that life. He hadn't been on Red K in over three years since an incident with Metallo and a newer power source. Confused, Clark sat up and tried to remember the night before. His throat was dry as cotton when he realized he'd woke up in Lex's bed.

A bed obviously used.

And only in his boxers.

As he looked around, he spied Lex sitting in a chaise lounge, pouring over the Wall Street Journal, all that same insouciance as if Clark woke up in his bed every day of the week. It didn't matter what meaner members of the football team had joked about when he was a kid or even Lois's digs when Conner was first around, it had never been like that.

Sure maybe...

"Did you take advantage of me?"

Lex folded the paper and his jaw was clenched so tightly that Clark thought it might break. It took a while before the other man spoke. "Actually, your mother and your wife wanted to move things along faster. You had a dose of that delightful Kryptonite lipstick courtesy of Sullivan that gave you the idea for us to all come back here. Jonathan's with Conner and Martha, by the way. Safe as houses on the farm."

"Did we?"

"You have superior senses, you really think we did? More to the point, after almost eighteen years of knowing each other, do you think I would ever do that?Come on, Clark, no incarnation of me would ever do that, especially me right here. You know this. So if you're embarassed, fine, blame your own libido and Jekyll and Hyde act. But don't accuse me of things beneath me and that I'd never dream of doing to someone I love."

Clark blinked and the night's events were rushing back to him finally-the mistle toe, kissing Lex so frankly in front of Conner and Jonathan both, the make out he'd been angling for on the bed. He also remembered the way that, aside from a few kisses, Chloe and Lex had fallen asleep at his side asking him to wait until morning and a clear head. He'd been the unrestrained for obvious reasons, and they'd just been as calm as always, the superegos to his id.

"Oh, that's kind of embarassing."

Lex smirked. "Yes, apparently when you remove the stick from your ass you're a bit of a slut, Clark Kent. Don't let the rest of the Justice League know. I think that would blow Bruce's mind."

"I..."

Lex frowned and looked back at him, blue eyes boring into his with creepy intensity. "You know, I can track things that go on in my city, even as a kid. You think I didn't follow up on that impossible crime wave with your M.O. all over it? I could never prove it and then I wasn't well, but I spoke to people at Atlantis. You were hardly discreet or one to discriminate. The things you did that summer, my my."

"You sound like Lionel or like a Bond villain. So what? So trashed I'm different. It's not who I am," Clark said, standing and shoving his jeans and red t-shirt on. He was done with free shows. "Chloe, Mom, whatever stupid plan they had...it wasn't true."

"Who isn't it true for? Clearly, deep down, you want me."

Clark swallowed hard. Maybe, when he was giving CPR and was a mixed up fourteen year old, maybe that fall back after Lex had saved the farm and things seemed possible for once. Not now. He wasn't...God, what would his dad have thought? The League?

"I can't."

Lex stood and stalked up next to him. "Because you don't actually care about me that way or because it's 'wrong.'"

"I'm married and have two kids."

"You have three."

"Because you...because Lex 1.0 stole."

"Yes and none of us-not you or me or Conner-asked to be in Lionel and the original Lex's clone experiments, I get that. Still look me in the eye right now Clark and tell me it was all just the Red K. Tell me you never loved me."

"I never loved you," Clark said and it had been easier lying about being an alien and issuing out a million "it's just adrenaline" excuses. He was looking down at his feet so fast that he wondered if his head had blurred to Lex. "I have to find my wife." He put emphasis on that last word as if it could drive home his point.

Even he knew it fell flat, not when he could remember all he'd done and the fact that Chloe was more than fine for whatever reasons with sharing.

"She's downstairs. Chef's making her breakfast. I keep my own cared for."

Clark clenched his hands at his sides but didn't dare look Lex in the eyes again. "Are you in love with her? Is this all some weird plot to ex me out?"

Lex shrugged. "I think you can love more than one person in your life. Sullivan and I make good partners for what it's worth, and I've met few people with an intellect to match my own. But what we actually wanted was all of us, this own permutation of power and family, however it happened. I can love you both, you know."

"I can't love you," Clark said, his voice a whisper.

"No, Clark," he corrected, hurrying out the door first. "You won't let yourself love me and that's a big difference."

***

"So maybe I'm not the best planner," Chloe said, reclining with her shirt pulled up just below her chest. The sun was flowing over her stomach, and she knew already that Lily was made for it. She'd felt that need before, during the Crisis, but had to ignore it. Maybe soaking up sun then, if she'd had that luxury, would have jump started Jonathan's powers sooner. She wasn't sure she'd ever know.

Lex sighed and handed her herbal tea. She glared at him; that had to be punishment. She was invulnerable and her half-Kryptonian child was in no way in danger from coffee. God, she was sick of pregnancy and no black java, damn it. "You tried. You and Martha put a definite spin on it."

"I just thought if he could loosen up for one night that he would...I know this isn't how this ends."

Lex laughed but she noted how sharp and brittle it was. He surprised her a bit by kissing her long and lingering, and she returned the affection. "At least I have something, don't I? I can assume you won't scheme to kill me, Sullivan, and that our children shall always be good friends."

She nodded and kissed his cheek, hating that she couldn't make things better faster. "Lily will always be yours too. I've found children love their godfathers."

"I bet," Lex said. "I...at least I know for sure. He did love me, still does since Clark's a shitty liar. At leat that's something."

Chloe shook her head and hissed a bit as Lily stirred. "I'll figure it out. This isn't about you, not even what the original Lex did. This is all about Clark and his hang ups and who he thinks he has to be. Be honest, you were bald since you were nine and I was that crazy girl looking for bigfoot by the time I was ten. We were never normal and we rolled with that."

"And Clark craves it like a drug, literally as the two kids, fence, and minivan."

"Yup, but he just has to come around to the idea. I mean, we're two mutants and an alien, how normal were we ever gonna be?"

"Before that, three far too smart kids with no friends and I can wanting normal, but we've all tried that-the pedestal of a billionaire, the beautiful yet deadly wives, and the small town princesses. I think this is better."

Chloe nodded and thought everything over. "I'll figure something out. We got him to admit it. Now we just get him to accept it. Besides, we've got all the time in the world, right?"

Lex nodded and his voice was probably as hollow as her own. "If I had to spend the next two thousand years or so with people, I feel I couldn't do much better, Chloe."

She smiled and kissed him again, beaming back at him when he stroked her stomach. "Same then. Just I'll get Clark to accept he doesn't have to be so typical, that he can be what he wants. Oh so about you and Tess. I really think-"

"One thing at a time, Sullivan," Lex snapped and stood up fast.

She whined a bit at the loss of contact. "Then, I've not yet begun to fight, and I can get through any Kent or Luthor stubborness. God, almost twenty years of Clark's training must be good for something."

"I hope so," Lex said before returning back towards his office.


End file.
